The Desert Is No Longer

Freud Thought He Was Bringing The Plague To The U.s.a., But The U.s.a. Has Victoriously Resisted The Psychoanalytical Frost By Real Deep Freezing, By Mental And Sexual Refrigeration. They Have Countered The Black Magic Of The Unconscious With The White Magic Of "doing Your Own Thing," Air Conditioning, Sterilization, Mental Frigidity And The Cold Media Of Information.

America Is The Original Version Of Modernity. We Are The Dubbed Or Subtitled Version. America Ducks The Question Of Origins; It Cultivates No Origin Or Mythical Authenticity; It Has No Past And No Founding Truth. Having Known No Primitive Accumulation Of Time, It Lives In A Perpetual Present.

One Can Speak Of An Alterity Of Desire - A Paradigm Defined Outside The Tired, Tacitly Accepted Regime, But One Comes Up Short When Attempting To Posit A Framework Of Desire Beyond Available, Known Desires.

The Sumptuous Age Of Stars And Images Is Reduced To A Few Artificial Tornado Effects, Pathetic Fake Buildings, And Childish Tricks Which The Crowd Pretends To Be Taken In By To Avoid Feeling Too Disappointed. Ghost Towns, Ghost People. The Whole Place Has The Same Air Of Obsolescence About It As Sunset Or Hollywood Boulevard.

We Are Becoming Like Cats, Slyly Parasitic, Enjoying An Indifferent Domesticity. Nice And Snug In The Social, Our Historic Passions Have Withdrawn Into The Glow Of An Artificial Coziness, And Our Half-closed Eyes Now Seek Little Other Than The Peaceful Parade Of Television Pictures.